Another “Blue Ribbon” has been awarded to a Lake Havasu City School.

The U.S. Department of Education announced Nautilus Elementary School is one of 304 public and private schools nationwide to be selected for the academic achievement recognition. Jamaica Elementary School was the first in the Lake Havasu Unifed School District to receive the award in 2010.

“I have to say that it’s a deep, deep honor to have that recognition,” said Shaun Goodwin, Starline Elementary School Principal who was principal at Nautilus for nearly 10 years. “But we did what we did because we care about the students. We care about the kids.”

The Arizona Department of Education nominates schools based on one of two criteria: the highest performing schools in the state or schools that improved test scores with at least 40 percent of its students from “disadvantaged backgrounds.” Nautilus qualified with the latter criteria. Three other Arizona schools were chosen for the national award, which will be presented in November in Washington D.C.

The state reviewed five years of data ending in the 2009-2010 school year. Goodwin led the school for four out of the five years.

Goodwin credited the staff’s willingness to learn about the students, their background and how to educate students who are economically disadvantaged.

“We really, as a staff, took that to heart,” she said. “We spent a great deal of time having discussions about what serving that demographic would be and we educated ourselves about the culture and really made an effort to open our doors and serve and work with our demographic the best that we could.”

She said staff shared data weekly, worked with parents and provided academic, behavior and emotional support and resources for students. She said staff learned how to overcome challenges of a constantly moving student population. She said one class steadily had 26 students, but only six of them were in the class all year, the other students had come and gone.

“I think one of the biggest things that we did as a school was really strive to understand who our students were and what their student needs were,” Goodwin said. “(And that just) doesn’t come with testing. We are talking about people. We are talking about families. We are talking about all kinds of needs. So you can’t just think only about the score on the test. You have to think about the child and that’s really what’s behind that score is the child.”

There are more than 97,000 public schools nationwide, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

You may contact the reporter at jleatherman@havasunews.com